Free Character Transfers Now Available On Select Servers

[Jaavik]

Actually the fact that they ARE waiting to see how the transfers affected the destination servers show that they think critically and well. You want 20 min wait cues? I don't.

 

They have prime time play coming up (Satuday night), after they have some data from all the destinations at prime time they will know how many more they can move to them, if they need a 12th destination server, or both.

Ehh... I find myself on your side of the argument often, but I would say that if I were in their shoes, I would gladly trade a dead server for a 20 min queue any day.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Jaavik

[Skolops]

Rubbish, you can only monitor and adjust if you have capacity on the destinations to make those adjustments. Some of the destination servers were hitting full just 3 days into the transfer process. They overfilled servers by announcing transfers too quickly, now they can't adjust anything because those servers are full.

 

Monitoring and adjusting needs time, they should have announced some of the transfers (about 1/2 to 2/3 of the ones they announced) before the weekend and some after to give time for things to settle down and be evaluated.

 

I'm happy to see that there's some element of reason in your post in that you recognize the need for monitoring over time, rather than simply for short periods. Tonight and last night, Prophecy of the Five, for example, have been absolutely packed and it would seem that adding anyone else to this server would be a bad idea. That said, this activity will not keep up over the long run. The server should stay heavy or very heavy, but you won't have ALL of these people logged in constantly as they are right now that transfers have just opened up.

 

Where you're correct is in saying that actual activity numbers won't be able to be known for a few weeks as the initial excitement wears down and people get to playing their normal load. how they will handle that, I don't know. It's possible that some statistical methods will allow them to get an accurate enough figure without having to monitor things in that way for that long. I don't know exactly their thinking, but I am quite certain that they didn't just now realize that they'll need to watch these populations over weeks and not days.

[Eitri]

This means that you have a whole bunch of people who have not yet transferred - either because they play on weekends or because they simply don't play daily and may take two or three days to do their transfers regardless of what day of the week it is. For this reason, waiting for the weekend is an absolute necessity for getting accurate data on server populations post-transfer.

 

The current destination servers already have healthy populations, so the only risk is overfilling them. If they're worried that the servers will get overfilled, then they already should know it's time to open up new destinations. If they're already to the point where the remaining origins aren't going to be enough to fill one single destination then they're already screwed and they might as well open up a new destination, put them all together and don their flame proof suits.

 

They should have all the data they need to make an educated decision. The entire process looks from the outside like no math was involved. Their excuses should be more along the lines of, "we aren't filling the servers more because we need to leave head room for people to come back or new players to join," not, "we're afraid the destination servers might get too full so we can't transfer any more until next week."

[Skolops]

Because it seems like only 2 east PVP and a bunch of west coast servers are left. Where else can they put us? There are enough west coast servers to fill a new destination server. It feels like they are just holding us back and usign us as random filler for whoever needs more people, whereever that may be.

 

If they eventually did (or even now planned) to put the remaining servers into others which are currently medium population sized, why would that be a problem? The end result for you would be the same: a new server with enough people to play the game with. Do you fear getting assigned to a new server which ends up with a population that is still too low?

[Skolops]

The current destination servers already have healthy populations, so the only risk is overfilling them. If they're worried that the servers will get overfilled, then they already should know it's time to open up new destinations. If they're already to the point where the remaining origins aren't going to be enough to fill one single destination then they're already screwed and they might as well open up a new destination, put them all together and don their flame proof suits.

 

They should have all the data they need to make an educated decision. The entire process looks from the outside like no math was involved. Their excuses should be more along the lines of, "we aren't filling the servers more because we need to leave head room for people to come back or new players to join," not, "we're afraid the destination servers might get too full so we can't transfer any more until next week."

 

It's quite a bit presumptuous to say it looks as though no math was involved. As someone with a degree in mathematics, I can assure you that the things they're saying are quite consistent with what one would expect from people who had done some statistical and other calculations in preparation for this.

 

Moreover, we don't know what exactly they're monitoring. They haven't said anything about being afraid of current populations being too high - this is an assumption on the part of some outside observers. They could be doing any number of things, including trying to determine which of the already used destination servers to send the remaining people to. Only time will tell.

[Jasonito]

As another user eloquently said: "I'd rather wait 45 minutes to get into a server than 4 hours for a PVP queue." (Might be paraphrasing.)

 

Speak for yourself mate, I'm not fine with waiting 45 minutes just to log in. What if I only have a couple of hours to play? I have no wish to spend half that time waiting to play. I'd much rather wait an extra few days on server transfers, so then I get both a decent server pop and no queues to log in.

 

Yes I want to have my cake and eat it, I bought the damn cake, it's my cake, so why shouldn't I?

 

I'm far from being a "fanboy". You can check my previous posts, I've been pretty critical of BW in the past. But all the moaning and whining about the server transfers I find amazing. They've done about 80% of the servers in 3 days, and now they want to let the dust settle a bit before moving the last 20%. I don't see this as being unreasonable.

[Laris_Rai]

Speak for yourself mate, I'm not fine with waiting 45 minutes just to log in. What if I only have a couple of hours to play? I have no wish to spend half that time waiting to play. I'd much rather wait an extra few days on server transfers, so then I get both a decent server pop and no queues to log in.

 

Yes I want to have my cake and eat it, I bought the damn cake, it's my cake, so why shouldn't I?

 

I'm far from being a "fanboy". You can check my previous posts, I've been pretty critical of BW in the past. But all the moaning and whining about the server transfers I find amazing. They've done about 80% of the servers in 3 days, and now they want to let the dust settle a bit before moving the last 20%. I don't see this as being unreasonable.

 

Agreed. Also, it's Father's Day weekend in the States. Bioware staff gave up Thanksgiving for the beta so I think they've earned this. Besides, a lot of what was learned here will surely go into paid transfers down the line so I'm very glad they're taking the time to do things right here.

 

And FYI, I'm in the 20% and I don't really mind waiting a few more days.

[Skolops]

Agreed. Also, it's Father's Day weekend in the States. Bioware staff gave up Thanksgiving for the beta so I think they've earned this. Besides, a lot of what was learned here will surely go into paid transfers down the line so I'm very glad they're taking the time to do things right here.

 

And FYI, I'm in the 20% and I don't really mind waiting a few more days.

 

Absolutely. You don't want long ques. Mine you, short ones are honestly OK. Having been on the Fatman for a few months, I never saw anything more than 5 minutes or less - which was perfectly fine. I think there have been longer ones, however, and I can imagine they'd be pretty frustrating.

 

I might be in an even "worse" position than the 20% - at least in terms of expected time to getting what i really want. I was hoping to be sent to Fatman, where I'd rerolled and established a legacy almost as large as my original one - and gotten much better gear for my main, at that! This didn't happen, and now I have two setups on two different servers, and I'd REALLY like them to be together. Eventually, this will be able to happen, but probably not for some long while. It's disappointing, but in the end, I can't fault BW for it. It's luck of the draw in a system which makes as much logical sense to me as anything. Me, I'm going to keep playing and have fun and enjoy the unified legacy when I get it. Until then, nothing to keep me from having fun anyways.

 

For those still stuck on their dead servers, I understand its frustrating, but wait a few days and then you'll be all set. For me, wait a few.. weeks? Months? Either way, it's just how it is, it makes sense to me, and it shouldn't keep me from enjoying things in the meantime.

[BulldogzLife]

Says a player on Jung Ma, a destination server with a healthy population base. Please don't tell the people on this thread who are, rightfully so, very angry at the fact that they have been left out of the transfer service that the majority of the player base of this game has received. I am sure it is easy for you to say "This is life." and "Chill out." while your server population thrives and players can enjoy them game the way it is meant to be played, but for those of us stranded on the remaining low population servers, paying the same subscription fees as you and not getting the same gaming experience you are due to our servers low populations, we will continue to voice our dissatisfaction as we realize that 80% of the SWTOR player base will get to enjoy the upcoming weekend while we muddle through another 3-4 days of waiting for queues and looking for people to group with. It is easy to tell everyone to calm down when you, yourself, have nothing to be angry about.

 

Quoting this again for those of you who clearly aren't getting it from servers who've already received a transfer.

[bjbm]

Actually the fact that they ARE waiting to see how the transfers affected the destination servers show that they think critically and well. You want 20 min wait cues? I don't.

 

They have prime time play coming up (Satuday night), after they have some data from all the destinations at prime time they will know how many more they can move to them, if they need a 12th destination server, or both.

 

20 min queue or 2 hrs LFG? Ya...I'll take the 20min queues

[Eitri]

It's quite a bit presumptuous to say it looks as though no math was involved. As someone with a degree in mathematics, I can assure you that the things they're saying are quite consistent with what one would expect from people who had done some statistical and other calculations in preparation for this.

 

Moreover, we don't know what exactly they're monitoring. They haven't said anything about being afraid of current populations being too high - this is an assumption on the part of some outside observers. They could be doing any number of things, including trying to determine which of the already used destination servers to send the remaining people to. Only time will tell.

 

Really? If you were doing the math you'd need a weekend of monitoring to approximate what your server population would be? Doesn't it seem like they didn't really understand the parameters of the problem before they decided they might be able to fit all the West coast PVE servers into two servers?

 

My main point here is the apparent lack of planning. If they planned better they wouldn't need a weekend to monitor. They know how many subscribers they have. They know how many characters each account has and where those characters are. They know how many active players are playing on each server. They have enough data that they should be able to estimate how their actions will affect the system and then take those actions. Not take action and see what happens.

 

If they planned better they wouldn't have to decide between working Father's Day weekend and pissing off their customers, either.

[Skolops]

Quoting this again for those of you who clearly aren't getting it from servers who've already received a transfer.

 

I apologize for being blunt, but this is somewhat patronizing and in some ways really undervalues the compassion and empathy that those who have received transfers can feel for those who have not. Everyone who has received a transfer knows full well what its like to be without a queue, a group, an economy, or anything else that makes the game fun for them. We've all been there, and I think all but the most selfish of us are sorry for those who are still waiting.

 

That doesn't mean that we can't also ask those still waiting to be reasonable about the whole thing. To be disappointed or frustrated is understandable, but to be vile and nasty about it as some (though not, of course, all) have been is not.

 

Like I said above, I - and many of those who have received transfers - are still waiting for something else and will be waiting even longer: getting the characters together from their new server and the one they re-rolled on while waiting. I'm in this boat, and I'm bummed out about it - but in the end I'll get it eventually, and that's OK.

 

Those who are still waiting are unlucky to be sure, but in a few days they'll be on nice new servers, having fun, and in about a week and a half they won't even be thinking about this anymore. Cheer up, and be hopeful!

[Jasonito]

20 min queue or 2 hrs LFG? Ya...I'll take the 20min queues

Again, speak for yourself. Any queue to log into the game is unacceptable in my mind. Do you think it's fair to make people who don't PVP have to wait 20 minutes or whatever to log in, just so PVPers get to find groups quicker, on a PVE server?

[BulldogzLife]

I apologize for being blunt, but this is somewhat patronizing and in some ways really undervalues the compassion and empathy that those who have received transfers can feel for those who have not. Everyone who has received a transfer knows full well what its like to be without a queue, a group, an economy, or anything else that makes the game fun for them. We've all been there, and I think all but the most selfish of us are sorry for those who are still waiting.

 

That doesn't mean that we can't also ask those still waiting to be reasonable about the whole thing. To be disappointed or frustrated is understandable, but to be vile and nasty about it as some (though not, of course, all) have been is not.

 

Like I said above, I - and many of those who have received transfers - are still waiting for something else and will be waiting even longer: getting the characters together from their new server and the one they re-rolled on while waiting. I'm in this boat, and I'm bummed out about it - but in the end I'll get it eventually, and that's OK.

 

Those who are still waiting are unlucky to be sure, but in a few days they'll be on nice new servers, having fun, and in about a week and a half they won't even be thinking about this anymore. Cheer up, and be hopeful!

 

I and others are well aware of the disappointment you and others have in combining characters from your original server and the one you rerolled on. That will be worked out eventually I'm sure. The problem is you're able to play with those characters!! Meanwhile, those of us not transferred aren't even capable of playing with them!! We pay the same monthly fees as you do but are being shown inequity in the services provided to us.

[Nyteblades]

Again, speak for yourself. Any queue to log into the game is unacceptable in my mind. Do you think it's fair to make people who don't PVP have to wait 20 minutes or whatever to log in, just so PVPers get to find groups quicker, on a PVE server?

 

Do you think its fair that so many of us are stuck i wastelands with noone to even play with. Even after you have been on for hours and hours?

 

Yea give me a 20 minute que any day to the wasteland they have desertede us on.

[bjbm]

I apologize for being blunt, but this is somewhat patronizing and in some ways really undervalues the compassion and empathy that those who have received transfers can feel for those who have not. Everyone who has received a transfer knows full well what its like to be without a queue, a group, an economy, or anything else that makes the game fun for them. We've all been there, and I think all but the most selfish of us are sorry for those who are still waiting.

 

That doesn't mean that we can't also ask those still waiting to be reasonable about the whole thing. To be disappointed or frustrated is understandable, but to be vile and nasty about it as some (though not, of course, all) have been is not.

 

Like I said above, I - and many of those who have received transfers - are still waiting for something else and will be waiting even longer: getting the characters together from their new server and the one they re-rolled on while waiting. I'm in this boat, and I'm bummed out about it - but in the end I'll get it eventually, and that's OK.

 

Those who are still waiting are unlucky to be sure, but in a few days they'll be on nice new servers, having fun, and in about a week and a half they won't even be thinking about this anymore. Cheer up, and be hopeful!

 

You may be one of the few to have so much confidence in BW. Myself, and many others, no longer feel this. They have repeated sat on their laurels throughout this whole transfer ordeal, hoping things would work out. When it did not, they then tried (for months) to finally come up with transfer protocol - only to still let down 20% of their player base. Honestly, why did they not have *any* transfer functions in place for a 2012-era game, is kind of baffling. But this is water under the bridge now. But the fact that after all this, after all the thousands of pages of people getting tired of single-player games, they still manage to find a group to screw.

 

I'm sorry we all don't have infinite patience like you.

 

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". I think BW is up to fool me 100 now.

[Skolops]

Really? If you were doing the math you'd need a weekend of monitoring to approximate what your server population would be? Doesn't it seem like they didn't really understand the parameters of the problem before they decided they might be able to fit all the West coast PVE servers into two servers?

 

My main point here is the apparent lack of planning. If they planned better they wouldn't need a weekend to monitor. They know how many subscribers they have. They know how many characters each account has and where those characters are. They know how many active players are playing on each server. They have enough data that they should be able to estimate how their actions will affect the system and then take those actions. Not take action and see what happens.

 

If they planned better they wouldn't have to decide between working Father's Day weekend and pissing off their customers, either.

 

The thing here is that you're mistaken about the potential accuracy of the calculations you're suggesting. You could use current population and activity numbers to do this kind of calculation if you had a stable environment from which to work in the first place, but they don't. There are a number of factors playing into this:

 

- The game is relatively new. It's hard to get solid numbers in the first few months of a game like this because its certain that the population will spike with people checking it out at first before settling down after a few months.

 

- The game's population has been very finicky so far, with many subbing, unsubbing, and subbing again, or subbing but not playing as they wait for the next patch, after which they intend to play again or unsub.

 

- There have been some activity spikes which have skewed the already small sample size (as its a new game) of numbers, such as the Rakghoul event which saw a massive activity spike followed by an equally large drop off.

 

These, among other factors, make it a very unwise idea to try to use activity and population data from the past to try to evaluate transfers predicatively. The data is not entirely useless, but its not solid enough to stand on its own. It makes quite a bit of sense that pairing it with some real time but short term observation (like the first weekend post-transfer) will allow for the best evaluations they are going to be able to get short of extended (weeks to months) in between transfers.

[Boretide]

Agreed. Also, it's Father's Day weekend in the States. Bioware staff gave up Thanksgiving for the beta so I think they've earned this. Besides, a lot of what was learned here will surely go into paid transfers down the line so I'm very glad they're taking the time to do things right here.

 

And FYI, I'm in the 20% and I don't really mind waiting a few more days.

 

Actually i think they are testing ranked warzones this weekend..

[bjbm]

Actually i think they are testing ranked warzones this weekend..

 

Ya....awesome to know where their priorities are.

[Nyteblades]

The thing here is that you're mistaken about the potential accuracy of the calculations you're suggesting. You could use current population and activity numbers to do this kind of calculation if you had a stable environment from which to work in the first place, but they don't. There are a number of factors playing into this:

 

- The game is relatively new. It's hard to get solid numbers in the first few months of a game like this because its certain that the population will spike with people checking it out at first before settling down after a few months.

 

- The game's population has been very finicky so far, with many subbing, unsubbing, and subbing again, or subbing but not playing as they wait for the next patch, after which they intend to play again or unsub.

 

- There have been some activity spikes which have skewed the already small sample size (as its a new game) of numbers, such as the Rakghoul event which saw a massive activity spike followed by an equally large drop off.

 

These, among other factors, make it a very unwise idea to try to use activity and population data from the past to try to evaluate transfers predicatively. The data is not entirely useless, but its not solid enough to stand on its own. It makes quite a bit of sense that pairing it with some real time but short term observation (like the first weekend post-transfer) will allow for the best evaluations they are going to be able to get short of extended (weeks to months) in between transfers.

 

Wich for the 20% thats left im betting they they deside to wait those weeks or months before figureing out we also need to leave these wastelands.

[Skolops]

You may be one of the few to have so much confidence in BW. Myself, and many others, no longer feel this. They have repeated sat on their laurels throughout this whole transfer ordeal, hoping things would work out. When it did not, they then tried (for months) to finally come up with transfer protocol - only to still let down 20% of their player base. Honestly, why did they not have *any* transfer functions in place for a 2012-era game, is kind of baffling. But this is water under the bridge now. But the fact that after all this, after all the thousands of pages of people getting tired of single-player games, they still manage to find a group to screw.

 

I'm sorry we all don't have infinite patience like you.

 

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". I think BW is up to fool me 100 now.

 

This would be a fair statement if, two weeks from now, you were still not transferred. Given that the whole process started two days ago, its not.

 

If you're still sitting with no transfer on Monday or Tuesday, then you can legitimately complain. Short of that, its just impatient. It's like someone who ends up at the end of the lunch line in high school starting a campaign to say that the town's education system isn't providing them with food.

 

In life, sometimes we get at the front of the line, and sometimes the back. When we're at the front, its good, and when we're at the back, it stinks. Part of being a mature and healthy member of any community - whether one's country, one's family, or a gaming community - is being reasonable and patient when we get put at the end of the line, and respectful of those behind us when we're up front.

[Senatsu]

I find their reasoning questionable. If their reason for stopping transfers to see how the weekend population would be like, why didn't BW research this beforehand? They have population information of how many people logged in every day, possibly, since launch day, so why didn't they use the information they had about the population behavior from the most recent weekends and then make a decision?

Like it was previously said, stopping at 40-50% would be a perfectly reasonable place to gauge population increases and server load, but 80%, right at the end of it all, just seems to be extremely bad management. It's like they didn't bother to do any research towards estimating how their populations would increase and how the servers would handle it.

 

The system itself seems to be working very quickly and efficiently, but the management of which servers to open up, when to open them up, basically the entire handling of the system, is just completely brainless.

[bjbm]

This would be a fair statement if, two weeks from now, you were still not transferred. Given that the whole process started two days ago, its not.

 

If you're still sitting with no transfer on Monday or Tuesday, then you can legitimately complain. Short of that, its just impatient. It's like someone who ends up at the end of the lunch line in high school starting a campaign to say that the town's education system isn't providing them with food.

 

In life, sometimes we get at the front of the line, and sometimes the back. When we're at the front, its good, and when we're at the back, it stinks. Part of being a mature and healthy member of any community - whether one's country, one's family, or a gaming community - is being reasonable and patient when we get put at the end of the line, and respectful of those behind us when we're up front.

 

This would be true if this was a F2P game. We all *paid* the same amount of money to play, we should all be treated *equally*. There is clearly a bias against west coast servers.

[MrGrizzly]

Ehh... I find myself on your side of the argument often, but I would say that if I were in their shoes, I would gladly trade a dead server for a 20 min queue any day.

 

I can respect that...guess since my server isn't completely dead I'm coming at it from a different perspective. Normally I'm a "get it done yesterday" kind of guy, but this is something I'm willing to be patient on to be sure they get it right.

[Skolops]

I and others are well aware of the disappointment you and others have in combining characters from your original server and the one you rerolled on. That will be worked out eventually I'm sure. The problem is you're able to play with those characters!! Meanwhile, those of us not transferred aren't even capable of playing with them!! We pay the same monthly fees as you do but are being shown inequity in the services provided to us.

 

There's no inequity here. You got put at the end of this line. I was near the end, but not as far back as you. It is no fun to be at the end of the line instead of the front, but in ANYTHING in life - especially things with technical or physical limitations - sometimes you're up front, sometimes at back. As I said to another poster, if you're still waiting on Tuesday, then it would be reasonable to start crying inequity. Before then, its just impatience.

 

Note that when I say its impatience, I don't mean at all to say that you shouldn't feel disappointed. That's fine. Anyone who is waiting for anything is bound to and its normal. It's how we react to this disappointment that makes the difference between a mature and reasonable person and one who is not.